Hackers targeted some of France’s largest supermarket chains in an “unprecedented” cyber attack that disabled refrigerators in hundreds of stores.
The cyber criminals forced the temperature of the fridges up to 50C on Sunday night, sparking fires and spoiling mountains of food.
BFMTV said hackers had “managed to remotely trigger the forced defrosting of the refrigeration systems in numerous stores”, leading to “the destruction of stocks of fresh and frozen products”.
At least 300 shops of Intermarché or its Netto brand had been targeted, along with over 100 Cooperative U outlets, and several E. Leclerc stores, the retailers said in separate statements.
Dominique Schelcher, the chief executive of Coopérative U, described the attack as “unprecedented” and confirmed it had affected refrigeration systems since Sunday night.
“Targeting equipment essential to the preservation of fresh products and to the food supply of the French people is extremely serious and is unprecedented. It is unacceptable,” he said.
Christophe Hansen, the EU’s food and agriculture commissioner, condemned the attack, warning that “exploitation of food” was now a “reality”.
“Food security requires more attention at all levels,” he added.
Paris prosecutors said an investigation had been opened into “the large-scale cyber attack affecting the refrigerators of several major food retail chains across France ”.
The investigation would help “identify the victims and establish the link with the damage they reported in terms of foodstuff losses and the outbreak of fires”, the prosecutor’s office said.
Affected branches would have to “ throw away all of the products ” that are fresh and frozen, confirmed Intermarché.
Other retail giants Carrefour Market and Monoprix are also thought to have been affected but the companies have yet to confirm being targeted officially.
E. Leclerc said “that a cyber attack affected one of its refrigeration equipment suppliers,” resulting in “repercussions on the operation of refrigeration systems in several stores”.
Some supermarket staff reported feeling waves of hot air when they opened freezer units on Monday morning. Pictures posted online showed fridges registering temperatures of more than 26C, while others showed empty shelves.
A source close to the issue said refrigeration control systems from Danish manufacturer Danfoss had been targeted.
Danfoss said in a statement that most of the affected equipment had involved “legacy” products using “outdated software” that “no longer receive software or security updates”.
It said that it had long advised supermarkets to update from those models, without providing details of how they could have been hacked.
The entourage of Sébastien Lecornu, the French prime minister, said France’s cyber security agency had already identified “a vulnerability in software supplied by a Danish company and has contacted the vendor”.
The source told AFP it was “liaising with its European counterparts, as other countries may be affected” and seeking “to identify other French companies involved in order to alert them” and “prevent the spread”.
On Monday, Marché des Enfants Rouges, Paris’s oldest food market, was destroyed in a fire .
The blaze was reported at 4.15am on Monday, and 150 firefighters using 50 vehicles were sent to the scene. The cause was not yet known and there is no known link to the cyber attack.
Dutch companies face ‘security issue’
Dutch retailer Ahold Delhaize, which operates the Netherlands’ largest supermarket chain Albert Heijn and also operates in the US, said it was dealing with a “security issue” on its network and had taken several systems offline as a precaution.
A message on the retailer’s smartphone app said it was unable to deliver groceries because of a “cyber security incident”.
Online orders account for 10 per cent of Albert Heijn sales. Physical stores remained open, while Dutch news agency ANP reported that rival retailers had seen a surge in delivery orders.
Ahold Delhaize said there was no reason to see a link between the incidents in France and its supermarkets.
It is the fourth-largest grocery retailer in the US. Websites for its Stop & Shop, Giant, Hannaford and Food Lion chains displayed notices saying “site temporarily down”.
It was unclear whether other operations had been affected.
The full story
This article is one source in a clustered incident — the cluster page carries the summary, timeline and every other outlet covering it.
